Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Hayden
David was talking, his voice cutting through the cold with all the grace of a dull blade—something about breakfast, lift passes, schedules, all the pointless shit I couldn’t bring myself to care about. My eyes weren’t on him. They were locked on her.
Edwina stepped out of the dining hall in that goddamn green sweater, the one still burned into my memory from earlier.
Her cheeks were flushed, skin glowing with a warmth I knew too well, and her hair, tied up messily, strands loose around her face, was still begging to be pulled.
My chest tightened, the image of her back against that door, breathless and trembling under my hands, flashing behind my eyes so vividly it made me dizzy.
And then I saw him.
Noah—the little shit—stood too close, all confidence and easy charm, his grin wide, his hand hovering near hers, and she didn’t pull back, didn’t shift, didn’t give him the rejection he fucking deserved.
She only laughed, soft and distant, a sound that tried to pass for indifference but failed miserably.
Pretending I hadn’t had my fingers inside her less than an hour ago.
Pretending she hadn’t whispered my name against my mouth while I swallowed every sound she made.
David’s voice cut in, sharp, amused. “Hayden? You even listening, or did the mountain air fuck the brain right out of you?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because Noah leaned closer, said something, and she smiled. Looked down. Bit her goddamn lip.
That was it. The switch. The snap. The entire world funneled into that single moment. My jaw locked so hard it hurt, a slow, seething pressure winding through every muscle in my body until I could barely breathe.
She promised me.
Said she wasn’t going skiing.
Said she wasn’t going with anyone.
And there she was, standing beside that grinning little bastard in the same sweater I’d pulled against the wall while she came apart on my hand.
“Jesus Christ,” David muttered, following my stare. “Don’t tell me this is about that pretty brunette who just walked out surrounded by a bunch of horny students.”
I kept my eyes on her, refusing to glance his way, every thought drowned beneath the noise of fury and the heavy pull of possession twisting through me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” David continued, his tone twisting into disbelief. “A student, Hayden? You’ve really lost your goddamn mind.”
I exhaled through my teeth, long and quiet, the kind of breath that barely held back the violence itching beneath my skin.
Noah’s hand brushed her arm again. My fists clenched before I could stop them.
Every instinct I had screamed to move, to grab that smug fucker by the collar, to grind his face into the nearest wall until he forgot how to smile at anything that breathed.
“She lied,” I said finally, the words edged in something sharp enough to draw blood.
David turned toward me, eyes narrowing. “So what? She’s twenty-something, full of hormones and bad decisions. That doesn’t mean you get to fucking lose your mind over her.”
“She’s not one of them,” I said, voice hard enough to fracture.
David blinked, whatever humor he had draining fast. “Then you’re in deeper shit than I thought. Because if she’s not just another girl, then this thing you’ve started? It’s not going to end clean.”
I looked past him, out toward the slope where she’d disappeared into a blur of color and noise. I could still feel her. Still taste her. Still hear that little gasp she made when I pressed my hand between her thighs and told her she was mine.
David let out a long breath, shaking his head. “You look at her like a man about to destroy himself.”
I finally turned to him. My voice was low, certain, already past the point of return. “I already fucking did.”
He stared at me, jaw tight, expression caught between pity and disbelief. “Then for fuck’s sake, Hayden, I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”
But I didn’t. Not really. All I knew was this, if that boy touched her again, I’d kill him.
And I’d smile while I did it.
Hours crawled by, each one heavier than the last. The light outside had shifted from that pale mountain blue to a dull, bruised gray, the kind that warned of storms before anyone bothered to listen.
The wind had teeth now, dragging across the slopes, whispering in cruel tones that something was wrong, that something was missing.
And she still hadn’t fucking come back.
Edwina Carter. Gone for hours. Gone since the moment she’d walked out of the lodge with that idiot’s laughter still hanging off her mouth. Noah. The fucking boy I’d told her to stay away from. The one she’d smiled at. Said yes to.
I glanced at my phone again, already knowing it was useless, no service, no connection, just a dead screen staring back in silence. If she’d tried to reach me, I’d never know. If she’d called for help, I wouldn’t have heard. And that thought, it dug into me, deep and vicious.
But beneath the fear, something else burned hotter. She’d defied me. Looked me dead in the eyes and still gone with him. Disobeyed what I told her. I could still see that defiant tilt of her chin when she said she wasn’t going. Liar.
She was going to pay for that.
Not now. Not while the air was wrong and the storm was rolling down the mountain. But later, when I had her alone again, when that fire in her eyes turned into something trembling and desperate. I’d remind her exactly who the fuck she belonged to. Who she answered to.
Then movement caught my eye.
A group was coming down the path from the slopes, trudging through snow that looked deeper than before.
Faint voices drifted through the air, thin and uncertain, breaking against the wind before they could form into anything real.
Urgency in their steps. My pulse kicked hard as I scanned the faces.
Aster. Gwen. Zayn. A cluster of others trailing behind, exhausted, shaking snow from their hoods.
But not her.
She wasn’t there.
The realization hit me with the force of a goddamn truck.
Everything inside me went still, cold spreading through my chest faster than any winter wind could manage.
My legs were moving before I even registered it, the glass doors slamming shut behind me as I tore across the entryway, boots crunching through the ice.
Gwen looked up first. She froze mid-step, her face tight, skin pale beneath the flush of windburn. Zayn reached for her, steadying her, but his eyes avoided mine. And then Aster turned.
Her expression said everything.
Terror.
It wasn’t confusion or guilt, not even the trembling panic that could be reasoned away.
This was different—sharp, breath-stealing, the sort of dread that hollowed a person out before a single word was spoken, warning me in the silence that something had gone terribly wrong.
My stomach twisted. My pulse started to roar in my ears.
“What the fuck happened?” I demanded, my voice already a growl, rough and low enough to cut through the wind.
No one answered right away. Gwen’s eyes darted to Aster’s. Zayn’s jaw tightened. Aster’s lips parted, but no sound came.
It tore into her face and left tracks of terror, cheeks hollowing, lips trembling, lashes wet as snow, she stumbled forward, boots crunching, eyes unsteady and gone.
“Where the fuck is Miss Carter?” I snapped, voice hard enough to cut, I could not afford to splinter.
“I thought—” I stepped up, cold gnawing through my gloves, “she was with you.”
Zayn opened his mouth and slammed it shut. Aster tried and broke.
“She—she was,” Aster choked, each word a fracture. “The storm hit so fast we couldn’t see, we called, we…she was right behind me and then she—” her voice collapsed into sobs.
“Still out there?” I asked, every syllable wrapped in a thread of ice.
Gwen nodded, face gone hollow. “We searched, some people stayed, some kept going. No signal. We had to come back for help. It’s bad up there.”
Aster moved closer, tears cutting bright lines down her cheeks. “She didn’t want to come, I told her—”
“Shut up,” I cut in, the word slammed down like a fist. The lobby turned; I didn’t notice. Inside, something older and uglier uncoiled, a goddamn animal with one single thought: she was out in that white and I’d let her go.
My hands clenched until my knuckles screamed.
If she lay broken in the snow, if she froze, if she screamed and nobody heard, I would torch every trail and rip this mountain apart with my bare hands to get to her.
I wasn’t thinking about rules, or optics, or polite goddamn procedure; I was thinking of getting her back and ripping anything between us to pieces.
“Get help,” I barked at Zayn, each word a shove that launched him toward motion, then I swung back to them, fury carving the lines of my face. “Stay inside. Do not move. Do you hear me?”
“I’m coming—” Aster started, voice trembling.
“No,” I snapped. “You’re staying. You stay where it’s warm and alive. You sit your asses down and you do exactly what I tell you.”
Gwen stepped forward, pleading, “Professor, please—”
“You’ve done enough,” I spit, voice low and raw, every word sharpened with threat. “You lost her once, don’t you dare let that be on me again. You stay here. You. Do. Not. Move.”
Gwen flinched, Aster’s mouth opened as if to argue, then shut when her eyes met mine and whatever she read there knocked the words from her throat.
I turned without waiting, every muscle primed, rage burning through me and beneath that fire something darker tightening my chest until I could barely draw air, all of it centered on her, and the awful, bleeding truth that I could not breathe until she was back in front of me, safe or shredded, because if God was watching He’d better be ready to answer for letting her get hurt on His watch.